The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 
loff. There is a River Kusiloff also, thirty-five 
miles long, that rises from a lake of the same 
name at the foot of the mountains. The place 
was some twenty miles from Tyonak on the 
Kenai Peninsula. A large salmon-canning factory 
had been built at the mouth of the river, the 
manager of which was an American named 
Wetherbee. My reason for waiting a week at 
Tyonak was that I had no means of getting to 
Kusiloff. A small, wheezy steam tug of about 
eighty tons did the trip down the coast once a 
week, and I was obliged to wait for this old box. 
At last Dawson and I arrived at the cannery. 
I was tremendously keen to get into the country 
after sport, my expectations being wound up 
to concert pitch by the yarns spun to me by 
Dawson and many others. Wetherbee was not 
very gracious to me at first. I wanted to buy a 
boat from him, or, better still, to hire one, but 
he took up a most uncompromising attitude, 
probably owing to the fact that he had been 
bothered to death by various people with a 
similar request. I did not press the point, but 
took up my abode under an old shed that was 
not used, close to the beach, in which he said I 
might pitch my tent. I got Wetherbee to show 
me the cannery and explain the whole business 
to me, which he kindly did. 
Until we became friends I did not again 
broach the question of the boat, which was 
214 
